Chapter 30: Final Preparations
While Barney exited the dungeon, DM redirected his attention elsewhere. The girls were making their way back to the Twin Cities from the Upper Gordu Forest, bypassing the Lower Gordu Forest. If they were alone, it would be a perfect time to stop by the dungeon, but they were still joined by five other members of the Guild.
The charmed spider left behind in that other dungeon was still alive, so DM navigated it to the boss chamber. The minotaur dungeon master had already regenerated, so DM charmed it too, courtesy of a spawned tentacle. As the minotaur stood near the dusty console, DM spawned a new tentacle and pressed its tip to the screen.
The screen lit up with some illegible error message. “I guess I can’t control another dungeon’s console remotely like this.” After trying and failing a few more times, he controlled the minotaur to manipulate the console instead. The console reacted normally, as though the minotaur was trying to make adjustments on its own. “Success!”
It was a hollow victory, though. While DM could make similar adjustments to this dungeon as he could back home, it didn’t really help him with any of his current predicaments. Who cared if he moved walls or monsters around in another dungeon in the Upper Gordu Forest? The available monsters to spawn seemed slightly different than DM was used to in his own dungeon, but nothing stood out to him as worth pursuing. It seemed minotaur was not an option for random monsters, even though the dungeon master was a minotaur, interestingly enough.
Perhaps he could use the current success as a bargaining chip with the Guild or even the Nar Union. “I guess I’ll need to try traveling to that dungeon myself at some point.” DM was still reluctant to travel far, but perhaps good relations with the Guild would create an opportunity for him in the not-so-distant future.
DM next turned his attention to Daphne’s party. She and her allies were still resting after recovering from the attack half a day earlier. He suspected they would resume searching for a good opportunity to return west as soon as they were able. He saw no reason to intervene but was interested in monitoring them on their journey and after they arrived at their destination. Maybe he could even spy a view of the elf village.
Finally, he spied on Sasha and Ardreth. They had formed a party of five based out of the Empire’s capital city of Gazahanar. They were accepting some beginner requests in and near the city while they got to know each other, acclimated to the area, and gave Luna, the blacksmith, a chance to get used to fighting with maces. The pair of brothers, a spearman and a hunter, had similar levels of adventuring experience to Sasha and Ardreth. For whatever reason, the spearman didn’t refer to himself as a lancer.
Luna expressed an interest in adventuring towards the central region of the Empire. Sasha and Ardreth weren’t opposed, but thought it was a bit odd that she wanted to venture so far so quickly. There seemed to be plenty to do in the northern region around the capital as it was. Luna pointed to a posted notice at the Guild requesting some parties relocate, either temporarily or permanently, to one of the branches in the Empire’s central region. Her attitude of ‘no time like the present’ eventually won the rest of the party over. They decided they’d keep an eye out for an escort request headed south.
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DM had spawned a bunch of bats and sent them in waves towards the Twin Cities. He wanted them scattered around the Lord’s manor from the get-go. While he waited for them to find various nooks and crannies to hang from, he tried an experiment.
He spawned a tentacle on the other side of the boss chamber and had it use the hide ability on itself. The tentacle disappeared. He dismissed the tentacle and spawned one on another floor of the dungeon, adjacent to a random infected minion. Once again, he was able to hide the tentacle. The problem was, he couldn’t see the tentacle himself, even though he could still command it to take the same typical actions. Unfortunately, he couldn’t infect the tentacle itself either.
Hiding a tentacle could be very useful when lying in wait for an enemy, but an invisible tentacle was difficult to use. Essentially, DM needed to remember exactly where the tentacle was attached to the floor. Once he lost track of that, he’d have to either dismiss the tentacle or temporarily release the hide ability. Also, he couldn’t spawn an invisible tentacle. The tentacle would be visible for at least a short moment before he could make it disappear. He wasn’t sure exactly how useful this combination would be, but he’d give it a try when the opportunity presented itself. For now, he determined that the tentacle would remain invisible so long as it didn’t launch an attack. Scooping up a monster without actually harming it much did not seem to count as an attack. Most touch abilities counted as an attack, including pain touch, but apparently pleasure touch did not.
The thought of scooping a person up in an invisible tentacle occurred to him. Perhaps it was his tentacle monster instincts acting up again, but he felt a desire to see that happen. Even more than a desire to scoop someone up in a visible tentacle, where they knew what was grabbing them. Better yet, using spawn tentacle T2 to create and hide two invisible tentacles and then—
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“Ugh, what’s wrong with me.” DM felt somewhat disgusted with himself. “Anyway, I have more important things to worry about right now.”
DM monitored the bats take up residence at various vantage points. The Lord’s manor was protected by city guards and the occasional knight. Cycling between the different infected bats, he caught a glimpse of a suspicious person spying on the manor. They were covered by a hooded cloak so he didn’t learn much before they retreated on their own.
“Uh, things seem to be getting more and more complicated.” DM identified the main entrance to the Lord’s manor and waited for a good opportunity to spawn a tentacle. When it seemed like nobody was around, he spawned it on a precisely selected spot that was, hopefully, out of the way of any pedestrians. He immediately hid the tentacle from view. Now, he’d only have one tentacle to play around with elsewhere, but he could launch projectiles at anyone entering or exiting the manor and infect them. If the projectiles were small enough, the impact wouldn’t count as an attack and the tentacle wouldn’t become visible. The person would obviously be surprised, but hopefully they’d shrug it off.
For now, DM wouldn’t bother infecting anyone. He reverted his view to Barney who had entered the city without any issues. The assassin proceeded straight to the Lord’s manor, barely pausing to greet the guards as he entered unhindered.
A servant directed him the Lord’s current location, where a gray-haired man, perhaps in his fifties, stood before a window, staring out at the city. He addressed Barney without even turning to look at him.
“Why are you back so soon?”
“It didn’t work. We defeated the dungeon master, but the console wasn’t responsive.”
Eddie Pool, Lord ruling over the eastern portion of the Holy State of Whites, paused before responding. “Why would it not work?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Guild.”
“The Guild!?” Now, Lord Pool was agitated. “Just how in the hell am I supposed to ask the Guild?”
“I guess I did blow it up.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“What?”
“Whatever you tried didn’t work. The Guild is still fine. I think only one or two people died. The Guild Master must suspect us, though.”
“What should we do, boss?”
“I don’t know! They’ll be on guard, now. It’s only a matter of time until they report all this to the main branch back in the capital.”
“I could intercept that report and buy us time,” Barney offered.
“Oh!? That’s a good idea, actually. How sure are you that you will succeed this time?”
“The Guild doesn’t vary its routes for running messages. I shouldn’t have any problem.”
“Fine. Eliminate any messengers and then come back. That will buy us time.”
“You got it, boss.” Barney turned to leave.
“Barney, don’t forget.”
Barney turned back to look at Lord Pool.
“Without me, you’re nothing.”
“Don’t I know it.” Barney exited.
Along the way, a nearby servant bent over to rub her ankle. Something had struck her but she wasn’t even sure what.
“Everything all right?” Barney paused to ask.
“Yes, I just bumped my ankle on something?” The servant looked around the room, trying to find the source.
Barney laughed. “If it’s not bleeding you’ll be all right.” He exited the manor.
Barney grabbed a horse from the Lord’s stable and departed the city to the west. Once beyond the horizon, he left the road and set up a rudimentary camp near the periphery of the Lower Gordu Forest. A tentacle grabbed his ankle and charmed him. When he came to, written instructions awaited him:
Good job. Remain in this area for now and await further instructions.
Barney burned the message and hunkered down for what could be a long wait.
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DM monitored the servant wander the manor, completing various tasks. She crossed paths with a knight who seemed to be patrolling the interior as well. Infecting the knight indoors was probably too risky. Unlike the servant, the knight would be less likely to shrug off an unexpected impact in the manor. The last thing DM wanted was for the knight to innocently warn the Lord and his family that there is an intruder or something like that.
The servant also crossed paths with Lord Pool a couple of times. In theory, DM could have launched his attack right away, but he made up his mind before he started that he would proceed cautiously and wait for the best opportunity. For now, he needed to continue studying the layout of the manor and who tended to spend time where.
The Lord’s wife, adult children, and grandchild all lived in other parts of the manor as well. DM didn’t know for sure, but perhaps other family members were out at the moment. DM wasn’t targeting the family members, but knowing who they are and where they were would provide him better readiness for when it was time to strike Lord Pool.
The next opportunity came when it was time to swap guards. DM noticed a knight approaching the Lord’s manor. As the knight was crossing the threshold through the first doorway, he received a small impact from a pebble atop his pauldrons.
“Hm?” He stopped and looked up. From his perspective, the most likely scenario was that a small bit of debris fell down from the roof and caught his armor on the way down. Such an event was of no significance. The knight entered the manor and relieved his counterpart.
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DM considered sending animals or monsters into the manor but decided against it. Small animals, like rats, if he could even find one, would be difficult to issue commands to. They weren’t smart enough. In theory, they could sneak into almost anywhere in the manor, but DM had no idea how to direct a mouse to get to various parts of the home. The rat could surely pull it off itself if it wanted to, but that wasn’t helpful.
The monsters DM had at his disposal were just too large to be useful here. Getting them into the city, other than bats would be a difficult and risky challenge. The bats themselves were on the large side, but they at least blended in more easily than anything else DM had available. Maybe he could succeed in sending a bat in through an open window, but what would be waiting for it? Where would it hang from out of sight? Again, he didn’t want to take the risk. For now, he’d use people as his Trojan Horse of sorts.